Laws of Hierarchy
by gaelicbard
Summary: In Tevinter, you keep what you kill. Bethany learns that this rule, like anything in Tevinter, is complicated. AU


reading through the wonderful fenris/hawke fics with a popular premise of hawke becoming tevinter magister, i decided to try my hand at it. but being that the MC here is bethany, you can be sure things won't go as smoothly as they do for hawke (charisma and all that).

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Bethany stared with growing horror at the steaming corpse, raw and cooking, before her. She had never intended to strike so – viciously, that was the only word for it – and she had unconsciously pieced together a quick strategy to end her enemy. Permanently, though she hadn't meant for him to end like this.

He may have deserved it, even though more than likely he did, but more importantly Bethany had not wanted to be the one to give him death. Death to another human being – anything other than darkspawn left her light-headed and queasy.

"Oh Bethany…" she heard her mother whisper, muffled in the sudden rousing of the small crowd in the arena. It broke her heart, to kill a man in front of her mother, and a stroke of sudden anger towards Garrett took her by surprise. This wouldn't have happened if Garrett's brilliant idea to get her away from Templars was to send her – them – into the City of Mages.

Now a man was dead.

Bethany could smell her charred flesh when a fireball had seared her side, feel the aches of the blood magic she'd forced herself to dispel with unstable arcane magic, and the chill of frost that had fled her fingertips before lightning had crackled shortly after. Danarius's death had been anything but dignified, frozen but conscious and seeing the lightning…it had superheated the ice and exploded unexpectedly.

Bethany had never had it happen before – had never had her spells have such deadly power behind them. It frightened her.

Perhaps worst of all, her mother had watched the entire bout.

Viscera and blood smeared the cobblestone of the small arena, its strategically placed runes that formed a barrier between the small area and the audience's designated seats pulsed with ancient magic. Bethany's fine hairs, unused to such old magic remained standing on end since she'd entered the arena.

"It is decreed that Danarius, respected magister of the Tevinter Imperium, has been slain by a one Bethany Hawke of _Ferelden_." The announcer bellowed from his side podium, trumpets going off to sound that the duel had ended in death triumphantly.

Bethany's skin crawled at the strange joy that traveled through the crowd. Death brought these people joy. Minutes ago when she had entered the arena opposite of Danarius as he smiled darkly, rich robes swelling in a breeze around him, the crowd had been howling for her humiliation and torture before them. _Make the doglord bitch supplicate as it should be_ had been a popular cheer. Now, their champion lay dead in a mess of flesh and scorched bone.

The crowd cared for victory and death and suffrage.

The color of death in Tevinter Bethany realized distantly was the color of gold.

Bethany took in the people around her clinically and didn't listen as the announcer continued on with what seemed to be a tired speech. She swallowed and met her mother's eyes beneath her lashes, ashamed as the people called her name as if they knew her. Her mother's face was pinched equal parts in remorse and disgust. Bethany dearly hoped that the disgust was not reserved for her.

She jumped when she felt a touch at her elbow and called upon lightning ready to fling if need be. The announcer, a small short man raised his hands to show he meant no harm. He grinned.

"You've won, _Lady_ Bethany Hawke. By rights in Tevinter, as this was a legally sanctioned and approved duel fought in the eyes of a magistrate approved witness, that would be _me_, do you know what it means?" his tone was condescending and nearing disbelief. Bethany supposed she understood both parts. Condescending because she wore peasant's clothes, the very same she'd worn on her wild run from Lothering, disbelief because this dirty-faced peasant-dressed mage likely not worth the equal amount of the staff she carried around killed a respectable magistrate.

Bethany still took a little issue with it. She pursed her lips and steeled herself. She was a Hawke. "It means that by Tevinter law, I claim Danarius's estates and properties and material wealth."

"Very good, very good Lady Hawke. Not many foreigners immediately brush up on our laws when they come over." His oil-slick smile made Bethany grimace. "The house that was once Danarius's is yours and your people are coming to gather your things and move you there, unless you have any objection."

Bethany blinked in surprised. Word traveled unnaturally fast. "You're unusually helpful for someone who just watched a magistrate fall at the hands of a Ferelden refugee." She muttered suspiciously.

"The duel had its own pleasant repercussions. The bets were all on Danarius. Being what this outcome was, you've earned me quite a lot of coin."

She blinked, startled. "What made you bet on me?"

The announcer took a long look at his fingernails, "When the people bet entirely against one person, they do not keep their coin if the one they bet on loses – it goes to the arena master for hosting the game between the two duelists. And I am the arena master here."

Bethany sucked at the inside of her lower lip and looked away. Basic ethics were lost on the Tevinters and this day was difficult enough without having to argue points. "Danarius's servants are on their way? I came with my mother but neither of us have any cargo. Or baggage."

The announcer looked at her judgmentally again. "Servant is a kind word to use for _slave_ but unnecessary here in Tevinter. It may be illegal from…Ferelden, but there is no such law here."

Bethany felt a cold stone settle in the pit of her stomach, heavy and unwanted. Of course. Tevinter. Kirkwall was the City of Chains, but that was because Tevinter was its homeland that it broke from. There were no servants here. It was stupidly idealistic of her to imagine that just possibly this household would have servants.

She flinched and closed her eyes in disgust. She had fled Ferelden to escape the Blight, and later Kirkwall as well to escape the Templars. She could have fled back to Ferelden but they would have had nothing, and at the time mother had insisted that Tevinter was kinder to mages, better even than Ferelden.

She could see now that it was. She had gone from the status of a dangerous fugitive to a tyrant.

She wished Garrett were here. She wanted her older brother's courage to snap out a witty retort at the wrongness of this place. She wished she hadn't been forced into a corner by Danarius – she wished she was still in Kirkwall in that hovel with her wretched uncle.

She turned from the announcer without another word to exit the arena and as she did so she met her mother's eyes. Leandra's eyes were soft with something like regret as they met hers and Bethany felt her heart twist. She glanced away from her mother to look upon the statues surrounding the arena. People carved from stone knelt with shackles on their wrists, people made from granite or marble wore robes and proudly held up their palms.

None of this was going how it had been planned.


End file.
